


A Map Of His Being Gone

by lisachan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 06:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17823422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: They are a thing that keeps happening and that not even death can put a stop to.





	A Map Of His Being Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Uuuh, my first fic on Voltron! Obviously Sheith, because WHAT OTHER SHIP IS THERE TO SHIP???  
> Written for [The Clash of the Writing Titans #9](https://www.landedifandom.net/tag/cow-t-9/), [Week 2](https://www.landedifandom.net/cowt9-week2/), Mission 1, prompt: sci-fi (genre).

The first time doesn’t happen – Shiro says no.

Keith’s been living with him for a few months, by then. Living with _them_ , to say it as Keith would hate. He hasn’t taken a liking to Adam, yet. He’s well reciprocated, in that respect. Adam accepted Keith as he always accepted any other dumb and reckless decision Shiro’s made in his life – that is to say he hasn’t accepted him at all, he just got resigned to his presence. He keeps looking at him with stormy eyes surrounded in such a loud silence Shiro sometimes puts headphones on just to protect himself from becoming deaf to its echo.

They fought, when Shiro brought Keith home from the orphanage. Every ounce of Adam’s being yelled a vehement _no_ at the presence of the kid in their house. But every ounce of Shiro’s was screaming yes. It was a primal scream Adam couldn’t stop – much as he could never, with any other of Shiro’s silent screams. He has a way of doing things, doing them in the grandest and most shocking way, doing them so that the sacrifice is evident and, at the same time, so honestly selfless it is impossible to find faults in his actions. Shiro the Hero, everyone knows him. Everyone relies on him. Everyone takes advantage of that – even this kid, with his huge smoky eyes, with his pursed lips and messy hair, with the constant bruises and scratches on his face and knuckles, even this kid, so innocent, is taking advantage of that, and he doesn’t even know. And Adam keeps saying that, and Shiro’s ears just don’t want to hear.

The kid needs help. He can’t stay at the orphanage. He doesn’t fit in there.

“Well, he doesn’t fit in here either,” Adam says.

“I disagree,” Shiro answers. That ends the conversation that never was. They never talked about it again.

When Adam fights with Shiro, for whatever reason, Keith takes Shiro’s side. “He doesn’t understand,” he says, “He doesn’t understand you.”

“It isn’t a matter of understanding,” Shiro tries to explain, “He just has a different opinion.”

“He does because he doesn’t understand,” Keith insists. His voice makes his words sound final. Shiro doesn’t reply. Lets a little, treacherous spark of doubt pass through the barrier, he lets it corrupt the very foundations upon which he built his house with Adam. With every little spark, the building cracks a little more. Shiro doesn’t stop it. He never counterstrikes Keith’s accusations, he never defends Adam, he just tries to explain him to the kid as if an explanation could be in any way worthier than a simple “I know he doesn’t understand, we’re different and there are differences that can’t be reconciled, but I still love him”.

He never says he loves him.

Years later, he will be able to admit to himself that, though it was true that some differences between them couldn’t be reconciled, it was also true he never really tried. That he could’ve, maybe should’ve, but ultimately didn’t want to go that distance, because he probably just didn’t think it would be worth the time and effort it would’ve taken. Shiro the Hero was not supposed to last long. He was not supposed to outlive the war, or the sickness, or anything else. Shiro the Hero would have never been a family man. And saw no point in allowing himself to truly fall for a man that wanted that above all else.

Right now, though, it’s too soon to know that. Right now Shiro just doesn’t say he loves Adam because he thinks it would be too hard to explain to a kid why two people who love each other so much would be constantly fighting. It is a matter complicated enough he’s not even sure he would be able to explain it to himself, let alone to the wary ears of a kid who’s been abandoned too many times to believe in any kind of lasting relationship.

Shiro took him in to prove him wrong. To show him lasting relationships can be built on common grounds, trust and affection. And when he decided he would go on Kerberos, he decided to make Keith his last mission on Earth. With the relationship between Adam and him crumbling to pieces every day they get closer to launch, he refuses to leave only wreck and ruins behind him, if the worst should happen. He wants to help something being built before he leaves.

Problem is, Keith has been living in a wrecked house for years, and building is difficult, for him. He can do it, but he needs help every step of the way, and he’s hungry for it. He doesn’t simply need a hand, he demands a full body to be at his beck and call every hour of every day. For every ounce of attention Shiro grants him, he demands ten more. He needs it to breathe, to think, to laugh, to speak, like every other being needs oxygen, he needs love and complete devotion, like a cause worth fighting for.

Shiro decides he is. A cause worth fighting for.

He doesn’t talk about it with Adam – he doesn’t see the point in fighting again. Keith demands, Shiro gives. This causes a rift. The rift gets larger day after day. Now it’s gaping, wide open, torn enough one could see the heart of the world sitting at the bottom of it, if only one were brave enough to take a peek.

Shiro doesn’t want to take a peek – he decides it’s better to look away. He lets the rift be. He lets the space grow. Adam keeps the bedroom, he starts sleeping on the couch. Every night they eat together at the same table but only Shiro and Keith share more than just a meal. A conversation, impressions on the day they spent together at the Garrison. Adam speaks with Shiro about irrelevant things. Groceries. Bills. Clothes that need to be bought. Things that need quick fixes around the house.

He takes upon himself to keep handling a house that ceased to be a home months before, while Shiro builds another with a teenager he didn’t even know a year ago. Shiro knows. He’s not blind nor stupid. He knows Adam’s keeping the roof of the house up on his shoulders to prevent it from falling on their heads. Selfishly, he decides it’s okay. He’s got more important things to do. A legacy to build. Keith. His bequest to humankind.

The more time they spend together, the more Keith trusts him. He grows attached. Shiro sees it happening and decides not to worry about it. About the casual touches and the weird, tense hugs. About those smoky blue eyes haunting him every night, when Adam’s been sleeping for hours and Keith and him have been talking on that couch, and Shiro looks at the time and it’s too late for both of them, and he insists Keith goes to bed, and Keith stops – he _always_ stops – at the door and looks back at him, and whispers “goodnight, then”, expecting to be stopped.

He’s fourteen and everything in him is hot, now. His head, his blood, his hunger. He’s gonna get over it, that’s what Shiro tells himself. He’s gonna outgrow this. He’s just confused. He’s gonna calm down.

Except he doesn’t. He gets closer, instead, and more explicit as weeks go by. It’s the sense of impending doom that looms over them, Shiro tells himself, he knows he’s gonna be gone in a matter of months and he fears he’s gonna lose him, and for fear of losing him all he wants to do is dig down in him, get lost in him, mix up with him so to keep a trace of him, even the faintest, for how long he’ll be on Kerberos.

He’s gonna stop thinking about it. He’s gonna let it go.

Keith kisses him, instead. One night, minutes before being told it’s too late and he should get to bed. He senses it coming and breaks the cycle – he leans in and Shiro smells him, the scent of his skin, of his shampoo, the same Adam and him use. And then he tastes him, and Keith tastes like Shiro expected, incandescent. If volcanoes had a taste that would be Keith’s taste. Magnificent and deadly, and Shiro has to back away because the moment their lips touch he _knows_ , he _knows_ he’d throw himself in it with no second thought, given another second to get addicted to him.

“No,” he whispers, hands on Keith’s shoulders, gently pushing him away. And, for lack of a better excuse, he adds, “You’re a kid.”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Keith battles him, trying to get close again, “Shiro– I’m not a kid anymore and I want this. I want this so much I’m going mad,” he hisses and huffs and his hands search for Shiro’s body and Shiro doesn’t doubt, not even for a moment, that he’s telling nothing but the truth. This isn’t fear and this isn’t nostalgia in advance, this is hunger, pure and simple. Keith wants him. Not because he helped him and not because he took him in, not because he believed in him and not because he’s probably going to lose him in a few months. He wants him because he wants him, and that’s the only law he instinctively knows how to follow. And now Shiro knows he was trying to tame fire all the while, and he just got burned.

“I’m with Adam,” he says, keeping him at a distance.

It’s the weakest of defenses and also the most dishonest. Keith knows and backs away of his own volition, looking at him with eyes wide open and horrified, as if he couldn’t even believe Shiro would dare say something like that to him. Treachery. That’s the word his silence echoes of. You betrayed me.

“You don’t even sleep together anymore,” Keith says, “You barely even speak. Don’t tell me you’re with him. I know you wanna be with me.”

“You don’t understand,” Shiro looks away as he deals another card he shouldn’t use, “You will, when you’re older.”

Keith lets out an angry, frustrated growl, and walks away. “Bastard,” he whispers between gritted teeth, “Like everyone else.”

Shiro keeps sitting on the couch, motionless. His whole body is alight with pain, spreading like wildfire through his nerves and muscles. And yet, nothing burns harder than his skin in all the spots Keith touched with his fingers before leaving.

*

The second time happens because, this time, Shiro’s too weak to refuse.

It’s his last night on Earth. Tomorrow, 5 AM, he will show up at the Garrison. There, admiral Sanda will pick him and Doctor Holt up and, together with their security detail, she will drive them to the run-up track, where they will be briefed for the umpteenth and last time about the mission.

They will board the spaceship. They will be launched into space. From that moment on, the mission will be all, and there will be no more space or attention left in Shiro for anything else.

But today’s still today, the night is deep and dark and Adam’s not here. He left earlier, right after dinner. “For the last time,” he said, and he was crying, “Don’t go. If for nothing else, for me. I’m not trying to make you think about how sick you are and how dangerous this mission is– I’m begging you to stay because I love you and I don’t know how to survive missing you like I did before.”

Shiro looked at him. He looked at him for seconds. He thought – he just said he loves me. I should at least say it back.

He didn’t.

He looked down and frowned. “I can’t stay,” he said.

“I know you think it’s over between us, but we can fix this,” Adam insisted, getting closer. The warmth of his hands on his own. His smell that Shiro used to find so comforting. Those deep brown eyes for which Shiro thought he could die, at the beginning of their relationship.

Turns out there’s nothing he can die for, except the Fight. Capital F. The hero’s fight. The only one you truly know you’re fighting if chances of making it back are slimmer than chances of winning. That’s how he wants to die – covered in glory, honored, respected, knowing he left the universe a little safer for the people. He doesn’t want to die weak and paralyzed in a hospital bed, needing help to eat and pee, losing consciousness a little bit more every day – that’s how Adam would like to see him die, safe and sound, and slowly decaying. He refuses to decay. If he has to die at all, he will die burning, like a supernova.

“I can’t stay,” he said again. This time, he looked up, and Adam backed away because he saw in his eyes that even if he stayed there would have been nothing to fix between them anymore.

He clutched his fists down his sides, frowning deeply as he looked at him. His anger palpable, he spoke with the harshest voice. “So that’s it, then,” he said. He waited for an answer that didn’t come. “Very well,” he said then, turning away, “You made your choice. Don’t resent me for making mine.” He took his bag and walked out. To where, Shiro doesn’t know. The fact that he isn’t wondering about it, that he isn’t even truly worried about him, says more than Shiro cares to admit about himself.

“Say goodbye to Keith from me,” Adam added, seconds before leaving, “And make sure to say goodbye yourself. Properly. If that’s how you want to end, at least try and have no regrets.”

There was cruelty in his voice. Shiro tried to ignore the truth in his words. He’s being mean, he told himself, ignoring the sneaky other voice saying well, this may be true, but it doesn’t mean he can’t also be right.

He went on with the rest of the night as he usually would’ve had Adam been there too. He fixed the leaking tap to make sure it would be okay the moment he left the house. He washed the dishes ignoring the dishwasher’s silent offer for help. He sat on the couch and played videogames by himself. Flight simulators. Of course.

Keith hasn’t talked to him since that night. He has avoided him in any way he possibly could, showing him the true, honest heartlessness of adolescence. All the while Shiro kept thinking – come on, kid. Three weeks and I’ll be gone. Two weeks and I’ll be gone. One week. Seven days. Then five. Three. One. Talk to me. Look at me. At least acknowledge my existence.

But what is a timer ticking down towards the end for Shiro is just a clock naturally moving forward for Keith. He _is_ a kid, no matter how fast he’s been forced to grow up, no matter how much he likes to call himself otherwise. He is a child. It is in the very nature of children to think of time as an endless matter. So Keith offers him a cold shoulder and the silent treatment because he thinks they will have another tomorrow to say they’re sorry and get close again, but they don’t.

They just don’t. It’s tonight or never again.

Shiro turned the light off and started staring at the ceiling hours ago. He’s taking note of all the eerie sounds of the night – he knows he won’t hear them in space. Stray cats rummaging through garbage cans, overthrowing them and then running away with a scared screech. Dogs barking in the distance as an answer to that sound, children suddenly waking in fear in the middle of the night because of that cacophony of loudness and people swearing loudly, men and women who had just conquered the bliss of a few minutes of sleep.

With his eyes wide open to the blinding blue-whiteness of the ceiling, Shiro thinks that every living being is connected and that he’s fighting to protect them all, and this is the reason he’s alive, and he feels at peace with sacrificing for it.

Then he hears the symphony of quiet sounds accompanying Keith moving. Ruffling of the sheets. Feet too long for a fourteen years old boy, promises of the tall man he’s going to become, landing on the floor. Steps muffled out by the carpets. The door of his bedroom creaking open. That was the guest bedroom, before. Now it’s Keith’s. He hopes even after he’s gone Adam’s going to let him keep it.

Keith appears on the door frame and instantly Shiro knows time caught up with him and made sure he realized it’s gonna run out comes tomorrow. He shuts his eyes closed right away because he’s scared to confront the notion himself.

“Don’t pretend you’re sleeping, I know you’re not.”

Shiro surrenders right away, opening his eyes and searching for Keith’s slim outline in the darkness. The kid gets closer, tense and nervous as he always is. To think his team mates at the Garrison think he’s cool. They should see him at home, the place Keith fears losing the most.

He sits up just in time to welcome Keith next to himself on the couch. He sighs because Keith has that look in his eyes, the one he always has when he demands an explanation or, at the very least, a Conversation. Capital C.

There are too many heavy capitals in Shiro’s life.

“You should be sleeping,” Shiro says with a patient sigh. He knows Keith doesn’t want to hear this, but he also knows he isn’t going to talk first. He has to unlock him, somehow, and there’s no better way to do that than by saying something he will loathe hearing. His contempt will simply be too cumbersome for him to keep it hidden, and he’ll have to speak up to let it out.

So it happens.

“Don’t tell me I should be sleeping. None of us should be sleeping. We should be talking.”

“To say?”

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to try and convince me to stay. Not you too.”

“I’m not Adam,” Keith spits out as if the mere idea of a comparison between the two of them made him sick to his stomach, “I understand why you have to go. I believe you must go if that’s what you want, but you can’t leave if we don’t clear things up between us.”

“There’s nothing to clear up. You misunderstood my attentions and I corrected you.”

“Liar,” Keith growls and grabs him by his shoulders, trying to force him to turn towards him. Shiro stubbornly keeps avoiding his gaze. “You’re a liar and a coward, too. You don’t even have the courage to look at me when you say it.”

“It would make no difference.”

“It would, because you wouldn’t be able to lie if you were looking at me!”

“It wouldn’t make a difference if it was a lie!” Shiro finally turns towards him as he slaps his hands away, interrupting their contact, “I’m leaving tomorrow! I’m probably never going to come back, and even if I did– Christ, Keith, you’re a _child_ , I’m twenty-five, what kind of future do you even think we could have?!”

“What do you think I care for the future?!” Keith yells back, allowing himself to cross the line now that he knows Adam isn’t home, “I know you’re not gonna be around forever! Do you think I dream of country houses with dogs and white fences, while I sleep? Do you think you’re the only one who wants to die in the heat of the battle? I don’t want that kind of future– marriage, children, whatever, I’m a pilot! I’m a fighter!”

“Then what do you want from me?!”

Keith holds his head between his hands, squeezing so tight for a second Shiro has the impression he’s trying to crush his skull. “I want you,” he growls against his lips, seconds before pressing them together.

For a second, Shiro wonders. Was Keith born like this? Or is this Shiro’s fault – did he turn him into a younger carbon copy of himself without even planning to?

He wanted to fight – no, to _die_ fighting a war with the ultimate goal of making the universe a safer place for the people, for _Keith_. And now Keith tells him he doesn’t want a safer universe. He just wants to fight to his death for it too.

But it’s a second. Seconds pass. And when they’ve passed, only senses remain. The heat of Keith’s lips, their taste. The wetness Shiro can imagine past them. Closeness, warmth, a loving, passionate touch. The knowledge that, comes morning, he’s gonna say goodbye to all of this .

He should back away. Instead, he wraps his arms around Keith’s waist, and Keith answers with a broken moan that makes Shiro want to bite him.

He does because why the hell shouldn’t he. He does because to hell with everything else. If this is a mistake, well, Keith’s young. He’s got a full life ahead of him, he will get over it. Besides, if this is a mistake he’s making believing it’s the right thing to do, he will get over it faster. This kind of mistakes are the easiest for forgive and forget. Regret, on the other hand. That’s a scar that never fully mends, a pain that never disappears.

Keith gasps and whimpers, instinctively parting his legs. Shiro falls between them scared of how natural this feels. How pleasant, too. He shouldn’t like this so much. Keith’s a kid. But then Keith whispers “I love it”, when Shiro starts moving on top of him, friction sending shivers up his spine every time their crotches collide, and Shiro doesn’t have time to feel guilty any longer.

As always, Keith demands, Shiro gives.

They move confusedly, their voices growing louder in the night. They don’t undress. They don’t feel the warmth of their skin if not through their clothes. They kiss a lot but that’s the only wet contact between them – everything else happens through a barrier that somehow makes it safer and protects them both.

Shiro moves, chasing closeness against Keith’s body. Keith clashes against him, chasing pleasure and release, the only things that can matter in his young mind. Though used to loss, as long as he’s still a child he will always think of losing someone as something impossible. But he holds onto Shiro’s body tight because his own body knows. His own body’s already getting ready to say goodbye.

Shiro comes whispering Keith’s name in a broken sigh and hearing it Keith flinches and bites at his bottom lip as if he was trying his hardest to prevent himself from saying something he would regret. Shiro distinctively thinks he hates to know he will never hear those words. He will always wonder what they would’ve been.

They part from one another, panting and shaking. Keith moves uneasily, freaked out by the stickiness of sex. He looks away because he’s embarrassed and all Shiro would like to do is hold his chin between his fingers and make him look back at him, because he misses his eyes already.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” he says instead, lowering his eyes, “Why did you do it?”

“Are you seriously asking me that question?” Keith spits out angrily.

“Yes,” Shiro nods, “After the things I told you last time, you should’ve given up. I didn’t deserve this.” He covers his face and shakes his head, whispering in a lower voice. “You should’ve given up.”

Keith stands up, battling discomfort and disgust. He looks straight on, avoiding Shiro as he squares his shoulders. “I will never give up on you,” he says.

It’s at the same time a promise and a threat.

*

The third time happens because Shiro doesn’t even remember who he is, his name or what he’s doing wherever he is now.

He’s got muddy memories of waking up in what resembled an old wooden house, being called by his name, being asked if he was alright. Was he alright? He didn’t know. His body didn’t hurt anymore, the pain in his arm was completely gone – was that the definition of alright? The absence of pain?

He couldn’t say. He couldn’t know – the entirety of last year seems lost to his mind. He remembers fear. And a desperate desire to live. And he feels ashamed about it – Shiro the Hero, who was willing to lay down his life for the universe, ultimately didn’t really wanna die. He ultimately just wanted to come back. To a home he can’t even call like that anymore, to a life he wrecked with his own hands.

To a kid he ruined. That he hasn’t stopped thinking about for one day since he’s been gone.

He wakes up in the middle of the night awakened by the sound of Keith’s voice and all he can think about is that he can’t believe he’s hearing it again. Its sounds different – deeper, somehow, in a way that isn’t justifiable with just the time that’s passed since their last conversation. He’s grown up much more than the last year could’ve allowed, and the difference is all in his voice, grave and firm as it calls him, “Shiro. Shiro. God, please, wake up.”

As always, Keith demands, Shiro provides. And he opens his eyes.

His sight is still muddy with sleep, but he sees him. Keith almost towering over him, looking at him with such worried eyes. There are tears in them – naturally.

“...Keith,” he whispers his name as though it was the only word he knew or comprehended. And Keith just bursts. He leans in and hides his face against his chest and starts crying loudly, clinging to the sheets covering his body as if he was crying a dead. An angry cry, more than a sad one.

“You wouldn’t wake up,” he says through the sobs, “I thought maybe there was something I overlooked– that you got hit in the head or something– that I should’ve taken you back to the Garrison instead of here, and I–”

“I’m alive,” he says in a whisper, “I’m okay.”

Keith holds his breath for a moment and that’s enough to stop crying.

Shiro watches him move away, grab a chair, drag it next to the bed and sit on it. He keeps watching him the whole time – as if he didn’t want to lose sight of him, not even for a second. He wishes he could tell him he’s here, now, that he’s not going away. But it feels like a promise he’s not ready to make.

“Your arm?” Keith asks. Always the practical one.

“Gone.”

“How?”

“I don’t remember. Your friends?”

“Gone.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to be alone with you. Why do I have answers and you don’t?”

“I suppose you weren’t trapped in an alien ship up to a few days ago. That makes your situation somehow easier to explain. And mine a little bit more complicated.”

“You’re not even trying.”

“I told you I don’t remember.”

“You’re not even trying to remember.”

“If all you wanted to do with me was grilling me, you could’ve left me in that wrecked ship.”

He shouldn’t have said this and he knows it. Then again, he probably did it on purpose, to better deserve the slap that hits him across his face, and that Keith even gets up on his feet to give him.

Shiro takes it, of course. His head turns ninety degrees on his neck and he remains in that position, his cheek burning, Keith’s contempt burning him even more.

“How can you say that to me?” Keith spits out angrily, “After all I did-- all the time that’s passed-- that’s all you can tell me?”

Shiro turns back to look at him. This kid he molded into an obsessive unaware soldier has eyes that keep asking for answers, and he has none. He has nothing to offer him. He can only bare himself and hope that’s enough – but frankly, he doubts it.

“I thought of you,” he says under his breath, “Every hour of every day. I was captive on that ship and all I could think about was you, all alone, back here. I had never felt like that on a mission. Out there, there’s always been the mission and I. But this time you were there too, and I got distracted. And when I was taken, I knew that there was a chance I wouldn’t have made it out alive and I couldn’t _bear_ it.” He looks down, gritting his teeth. “I knew no one would have taken care of you. Adam, the Garrison– you’d be alone. And I was up there. Prisoner. And for the first time in my life, instead of thinking that I should’ve taken that chance to take down the whole ship and die a hero, I was thinking that I had to find a way to sneak out of there alive, like fucking vermin, to come back to you.”

Keith welcomes his words with nothing but silence for the longest time. Only when Shiro turns back to look at him, he answers.

“Finally,” he says, “That’s what you should’ve said right from the start.”

“Don’t joke about this, Keith.”

“I’m not.”

Shiro looks at him and finds in his eyes that it’s the truth. That Keith shares his view about life, about the soldier’s life, specifically, but that there’s something else in him too, another notion, one life with him taught him. He believes he’s above it. If there’s one reason that, in his eyes, justifies Shiro from running away from battle, it’s that. That he wanted to come back to him. If that’s why Shiro ran, then it’s alright. He did good doing it.

“I expected you to have changed,” Shiro says with a weak sigh, “I expected you… softer.”

“Instead?”

“You’re harder. Time honed you. You’re a real warrior, now. You didn’t really need me to become one.”

Keith scoffs a bitter laughter, shaking his head and then passing his hand between his hair, pulling them back. He doesn’t just look older, he looks bigger, too. He left the young Keith Shiro remembers behind and covered him in a shroud to hide it from the rest of the world, and now not even Shiro can see him any longer.

“Your absence made me like this. Missing you made me sharper. So, you see, I did need you.”

And Shiro knows he shouldn’t, but a part of him is proud of that. And all the rest of him just craves Keith so much it almost makes his body remember how it feels to be in so much pain that you’d wake up screaming and screaming you’d black out in the night.

He holds out his hand towards him and takes this moment, this moment in between the Shiro he used to be and the one he’s going to become starting tomorrow, to allow himself to feel him again. Things get confused – this place doesn’t mean anything anymore, nor does the time passed between the last time he touched him and now. Keith takes his hand. Moves closer. Presses their foreheads together and then their lips, and he still tastes the same, and Shiro wants to burn once more.

Keith takes control of the kiss right away. He sits on his lap and Shiro allows it because all he wants to do right now is to put himself in Keith’s hands and ask for mercy and to be punished at the same time. He wants to feel this pain and then he wants to be blessed with the deepest pleasure, he wants his soul in shreds after this, he wants to be able to say he doesn’t have one anymore.

It will be easier, then. To say goodbye.

Because he knows this is not right. He knows the kid who obsessed over his disappearance and created a map of his being gone on the wall is not the kid he wanted Keith to become. He’s not the happy kid he hoped he’d be, but for him to become that kid Shiro can’t be a part of his life. And disappearing is not enough – disappearing leaves a black hole upon the heart, a hole that can only be filled up by searching.

He doesn’t have to disappear, he has to break this child’s heart. Leave him and keep seeing him every day until he gets in his head that this thing between them cannot work. Only then Keith will understand and move on. And maybe, in a couple of years, he will be able to smile again.

But that’s not gonna happen tonight – Shiro doesn’t have the heart for it tonight. He doesn’t have the guts to do it like this and he doesn’t have the stamina to resist his own needs any longer. He rests his hands on Keith’s hips, feeling their consistency underneath his clothes – even if with only one of them. He’s still bony, but he’s building up muscles. He’s on the verge of becoming a spectacular man, and Shiro feels privileged having the chance to touch him just seconds before that happens.

“Get out of these clothes,” he whispers against Keith’s lips, “I wanna feel you better.”

Keith whimpers and shivers strongly, and Shiro wonders for a second about that. He didn’t say anything special. He wasn’t even touching him in a specific way to draw pleasure out of him. How connected must the idea of him and the idea of sex with him be for this many few words to generate such a powerful wave of pleasure in Keith, to make him shiver head to toe?

He backs off a little, thinking maybe he crossed some line, that Keith wasn’t expecting him to be so bold – damn, he _is_ still a kid, despite what they’re doing, but he finds him already tearing his clothes off himself. He throws away the jacket, almost tears apart the neck of his t-shirt as he takes it off from above his head and drops it on the floor. He unbuckles his belt and frantically pushes his pants down his hips, growling in frustration when, because of their position, he’s unable to take them all the way off.

“Calm down...” Shiro whispers to him, placing his hand on Keith’s chest, right underneath his throat, “Calm down. We have time.”

“No, we don’t,” Keith struggles, gets up on his knees and finally manages to undress himself completely, “I don’t. I don’t care how many hours the night is made of, there are not enough hours in all the nights in the world to let me do all the things I wanna do to you, so--”

“Keith,” Shiro chuckles, because what he just said is objectively funny, “Seriously. Don’t think about that now. I haven’t seen you in forever. Let me just feel you.”

Keith calms down like a kid being told to be quiet. He sits back down on him and remains almost motionless as Shiro lets his hand wander up and down his chest, his side, his arm, feeling every muscle underneath his skin, every bone.

“Why don’t you use the other one?” Keith asks, his eyebrows coming together in a disappointed frown.

“The other what?”

“The other hand.”

The words give him pause. He stops for a second and thinks about it – and realizes he hasn’t used his mechanical hand on him. Not on his skin, at least. He looks down, feeling suddenly ashamed. “It’s not mine. I thought you’d freak out.”

Keith frowns even more. He stubbornly holds his metal hand in his own and brings it up to his chest. He shivers at the contact – metal is cold against his overheated skin – but he doesn’t recoil from it. “It _is_ yours,” he says firmly, “It’s attached to your body. And nothing coming from you could ever freak me out.” He leans in, resting his forehead against Shiro’s shoulder as he comes closer, rubbing against him, casually at first, then on purpose, when he realizes that kind of contact, that kind of movement, gives him pleasure. “I would take anything if it came from you. I wanna… I wanna take everything. I want it all. So give it to me, please.”

Shiro holds his breath for a second and tries to hold himself back because this is more than he ever thought he would hear from anyone who might ever want him in his life. And hearing it from Keith, hearing it as it slips through his lips, made red and swollen by hungry kisses, hearing it as he can feel his skin radiating warmth under his fingertips, almost makes him lose his balance.

He’s got to be the adult between them. But it’s so freaking hard when up to a few hours ago he was certain he would die, and now he feels more alive than ever before.

He leans in, covering Keith’s lips with his own. He puts a hand on Keith’s nape, keeping him close, and he closes the other around one of his buttocks, squeezing it hard as he makes him move again, up and down in a slow, barely visible movement, making him rub against him once more.

Keith gasps between his lips and holds onto his shoulders, muttering in between kisses. “You’re kissing me differently,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“I’m kissing you like someone’s that’s going to fuck you, kid,” he says, this time knowing exactly what kind of effect his words are gonna have on Keith, “That’s the difference.”

Keith moans and digs his nails into his shoulders, grinding against him. “Yes...” he whispers desperately, “Yes, I want it.”

That was clear enough already. Shiro refuses to let him beg one second more.

It’s always been like that between them. Keith demands, Shiro provides. And so he lifts him up a little, marveling at how light he still feels despite gaining mass over the last year, and when he guides him down on himself again he makes sure to align his erection right against his opening. And when Keith throws his head back and gasps in unexpected pain, as his cock breaks him open and sheathes itself inside his body, Shiro doesn’t stop moving, because he can read the signs on Keith’s body, his erratic breathing, his shivers, the sound of his voice, and he _knows_ Keith wants this. He wants the whole package, the pleasure and the pain coming with it. Much like he wants to be punished and forgiven. Extremes meeting halfway, that’s what they are, and everything about them works the same way, even this.

He moves swiftly inside him, back and forth, back and forth, and Keith starts calling him, holding onto him. Shiro’s grateful that they’re hiding in a shack in the middle of nowhere because he wouldn’t know how to face anyone if this was happening at the Garrison – if everyone could hear. But at the same time he wouldn’t be able to silence him, he would probably just beg him to be louder, to keep screaming, to scream his name at the top of his lungs, because that’s what he wants now, and when he overturns their positions, crushing Keith’s body between his own and the mattress as he makes him part his legs wider to move inside him harder, faster, deeper, Keith grasps at the sheets and screams his pleasure like a little beast and Shiro knows this sound, this precise noise, was exactly what he was aiming for right from the start. To make him lose control like this. To know he was the cause of it. To overwhelm him so completely to know with absolute certainty that in twenty years Keith will still remember this, arching like this, his back like the back of the moon, calling his name in pleasure.

This makes him a horrible person. And this is why he has to put a stop to it.

So when he gets down on the mattress and holds Keith close to his chest, he already knows this is the last time. And knowing this, he holds onto him through the night.

Keith doesn’t suspect anything, and if he holds onto him through the night too it’s simply because he wants to.

*

But then they find the lions, and all his plans get flushed down the drain. He keeps seeing Keith. He never says goodbye. Life gets even messier, but they keep holding on to each other.

Over the course of the following months, it happens several times. Shiro gives himself all reasons and excuses for it, but not the only one that’s true. Keith needs him, he tells himself. He keeps him for comfort. Because life is scary and so is fighting and he wants to hold onto the only person he knows who’s never been frightened by it.

Shiro pushes the date he knows he has with fate every day one day further. I’ll finish this tomorrow, he promises himself. Then the day after tomorrow. I’ll finish this in a week. I’ll put an end to it in a month.

Then, something else does.

*

Like all soldiers, he always thought death to be the end of all struggling. The end of fighting, of bleeding and drawing blood from the enemies. The end of waking up every morning of every day knowing you will only live to see another day if you manage to make so that someone else doesn’t.

Turns out death is nothing like that.

His consciousness, trapped in the Black Lion, is as alive as it’s ever been. He feels, he’s in pain, he longs, most of all he remembers.

He thought death would be the end of all wanting. Turns out it’s just a place for wanting to come back to Keith even more.

And so, when they manage to bring him back, when they manage to push his consciousness back into a body that isn’t his but is as close to it as it’ll ever be, the moment he opens his eyes on the world again he’s glad that the first thing he sees is the only thing he’s been thinking about incessantly since he died. 

Keith is there, and he still wants him. Like eight years ago. Like five years ago. Like two years ago and like two minutes ago. A truth unchanging, the North Star of his entire life since he could say he had something filling it beside war. He wants Keith and Keith wants him back, and the strength of that wanting alone was enough to defeat even the only unbeatable force in this universe, death.

And it is amazing, and glorious. And so very wrong.

And so it happens again. And again, and again, and every time Shiro tells himself this is the last time, just this one time and then I’ll free him, I’ll break his heart and I’ll give him the chance to find happiness with someone he can love and not be obsessed by.

He tries. He tries with distance. He tries giving him something else to do, pushing him towards the Blades of Marmora. He tries leaving and he keeps bouncing back as though he was tied with an elastic band to his heart. After the war is over, he tries sending him to the other side of the galaxy, helping planets with his group of humanitarian warriors. And since Keith keeps coming back to him too, in the end he tries marrying someone else.

None of it works.

*

This morning Keith sent him a message to inform him he’d be waiting for him in their _usual place_. Their _usual place_ is a sad establishment that rents rooms by the hour – it’s a clean and decent place, but the emptiness of the rooms, furbished with barely a bed, a small rounded table and a couple of chairs, always manages to sadden Shiro deeply. And what saddens him the most is how Keith doesn’t even notice this – how used he got to steal crumbs and tiny bites of life for their relationship that he thinks it’s normal to live this way, to wait weeks, months or a whole year for the couple of hours they can be together in an anonymous place no one would ever dare to call home.

It’s home to Keith. Shiro turned him into the kind of person who calls a place like that “our usual place”, a placeholder for a home they’ll never have.

Shiro tells himself he won’t go. He arranges the whole day as an excuse not to go. He tells Curtis he wants to take him out for dinner and then somewhere nice to dance, and Curtis is happy and laughs and hugs him, and for a split second Shiro feels happy, and then he feels dreadful, he pretends something came up at work, that he has to go to the Garrison, that he will probably be held up prisoner in work meetings till the morning after.

And obviously he ends up going.

When Keith sees him on the door he kisses him like he wanted to eat him. Clinging to him, he bites and sucks at his lips and whispers “I thought you wouldn’t come. Asshole, don’t ever make be believe you won’t come,” and Shiro melts and promises him never, never again he’ll make him wait, never again he’ll lie, never again he’ll try and make him believe there is something else in the entire universe he would love more than to die drowning between his thighs.

He throws him on the bed and Keith welcomes him fully, they strip their clothes off each other, they bite life away from each other’s skin and the outer world means nothing, and Shiro asks himself why, why can’t we just be together like this, why did I convince myself that this is wrong?, and then they come, and the air of the room is filled with only their heavy breathing for five full minutes, and finally Keith lets out a little chuckle and, as though it meant nothing, says “You know, last week I was fighting a Swathian Meerakeet and I almost got eaten alive thinking in just a few days I’d be back with you.”

And he remembers why. Why this can’t work. And why none of them will ever be safe as long as they keep indulging themselves in this obsession they mask as love and refuse to call by its name.

He parts from him and stands up from the bed, gathering his clothes, wearing them one after the other. Keith tenses, then he frowns.

“Don’t do this,” he says, “Don’t go.”

Shiro pretends he’s not upset. He buttons up his uniform as though he had planned not to stay the night right from the start. “I’m sorry,” he says, as coldly as he can, “I promised Curtis I’d be with him tonight.”

“Yeah, sure,” Keith looks away, clearly hurt, “What did you tell your husband?”

“Exactly what I just said. That I’d be with him.”

Keith bites at his inner cheek and says nothing. He’s holding onto the sheets so tightly his knuckles are completely white. Shiro wonders if he’s doing that to prevent himself from assaulting him and punch him in the face. Probably yes, he concludes.

“I’m going, then,” he says on the doorstep, not daring to turn to look back at him.

“What difference does it make?” Keith answers bitterly, “Feels like all my life you’ve been gone more than you’ve been with me.”

Keith has always been talented at hurting him with nothing but the truth.


End file.
